The Devil Wins:

A History of Lying from the Garden of Eden to the Enlightenment. Author, Dallas G. Denery II, talks about the topic with Raj Persaud

Is it ever acceptable to lie? This question plays a surprisingly
important role in the story of Europe’s transition from medieval to
modern society. According to many historians, Europe became modern
when Europeans began to lie—that is, when they began to argue that
it is sometimes acceptable to lie. This popular account offers a
clear trajectory of historical progression from a medieval world of
faith, in which every lie is sinful, to a more worldly early modern
society in which lying becomes a permissible strategy for
self-defense and self-advancement. Unfortunately, this story is
wrong.

For medieval and early modern Christians, the problem of the lie
was the problem of human existence itself. To ask “Is it ever
acceptable to lie?” was to ask how we, as sinners, should live in a
fallen world. As it turns out, the answer to that question depended
on who did the asking. The Devil Wins uncovers
the complicated history of lying from the early days of the
Catholic Church to the Enlightenment, revealing the diversity of
attitudes about lying by considering the question from the
perspectives of five representative voices—the Devil, God,
theologians, courtiers, and women. Examining works by Augustine,
Bonaventure, Martin Luther, Madeleine de Scudéry, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, and a host of others, Dallas G. Denery II shows how the
lie, long thought to be the source of worldly corruption,
eventually became the very basis of social cohesion and peace.

Dallas G. Denery II is associate professor
of history at Bowdoin College. He is the author of Seeing
and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology, and
Religious Life and the coeditor of Uncertain
Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle
Ages.